Sector Analysis: Using data blending and dashboards to summarise economic performance

The internship will be hosted within the Scottish Government’s Office of the Chief Economic Adviser (OCEA), specifically in the Directorate for Chief Economist’s OCEA: Business Economic & Sector (BES) team. This team provides economic analysis support to DG Economy, working alongside policy advisers, statisticians, and researchers. The internship will involve providing analytical and data analysis support for the delivery of the Scottish Government’s National Innovation Strategy, with project details tailored to the intern’s skills and the team’s specific needs.

Improving impact assessments to support the use of evidence in Scottish Government policy making

This internship forms part of an exciting cross-government programme to enhance how policymakers take account of the impacts of their decisions on different people, organisations or places. Working in a small team led by Chief Social Policy Adviser Professor Linda Bauld, but engaging with multiple policy and analytical areas, the candidate will contribute to a high profile programme of actions to develop the system of impact assessments within the Scottish Government. The team has a strong track record of hosting successful SGSSS internships. 

Development of a national standard on accessibility for disabled passengers in ferry travel

This would be a discrete project within the ICP working with the Mobility and Access Committee Scotland (MACS), ferry and port operators and councils and other user group representatives such as Scottish Tourism Alliance. The objective would be to develop an Accessibility Standard for ferry services that will be in addition to legal requirements for physical and mental accessibility and will act as guidance for island and peninsula ferry services, including vessel and port design, information and customer service.

Trust in government: building an evidence base for Scotland

Scottish Government has access to a range of data sources that provide direct and indirect evidence on levels of trust in government and potential contributing factors. This internship will focus on analysis that draws these together to build up a picture of levels of trust in government – and drivers of this – across different areas, demographics and protected characteristics in Scotland. We are interested in evidence from both quantitative and qualitative data sources, and there may be opportunity to carry out new qualitative work. It is intended that this project will result in a publishable report that provides a literature review of existing evidence on trust and sets out new analysis resulting from the project. Evidence based recommendations for improving Scotland’s evidence base on trust in government will also be welcomed, along with a presentation to relevant Scottish Government staff and stakeholders.

Developing the evidence base on childcare for families most at risk of poverty

Scottish Government has committed to better understanding and testing how to deliver high-quality, local, affordable and accessible childcare which supports family wellbeing and employment and helps lift families out of poverty. We are working to build our evidence base in this area and are seeking an intern to help us with this. The project will involve gathering, critically evaluating and summarising evidence from a range of sources to fill identified evidence gaps.